Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA)

Since the establishment of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) in March 2006, the Authority has introduced a number of key initiatives designed to assertively tackle each of the eight anti-doping rule violations of the Code.

The latest initiative that ASADA is currently working on is the ASADA Education Service Charter. The Charter is a blueprint for a broad based education program designed to engage with sports, athletes, their support personnel and the wider community on the issues of anti-doping.

Through a range of seminars, workshops and other outreach activities ASADA will educate a new audience of athletes and their sport personnel at the sub elite and school aged level. ASADA will also target regional centres around Australia, places that ASADA has never before taken its message of pure performance.

The program includes:

• ASADA Pure Performance Seminars, to provide athletes and support personnel with quality anti-doping education that aims to deter them from engaging in doping practices
• ASADA Pure Performance Athlete Workshops designed to influence and shape the behaviour and attitudes of athletes at the highest risk of doping, with the aim of reducing the number of athletes contemplating prohibited doping practices
• WADA Doping Prevention Workshops, to develop awareness among coaches and support personnel of their key roles in anti-doping
• ASADA Pure Performance Athlete Outreach, to educate young athletes about their anti-doping commitments in a fun and interactive environment

The program utilises elite athletes, medical specialists and anti-doping educators to provide athletes and their support personnel with a holistic anti-doping message that they can take away and apply in their sporting lives.

Another initiative that ASADA has recently introduced is the ‘Tank’, a deep freeze storage facility in which samples can be kept for up to eight years.

The recent case of Marion Jones has highlighted that fact that athletes are prepared to use a substance that is undetectable. The Tank means that that athlete will have no comfort in the knowledge that if science finds a new method of detecting that substance in the future, it can be pulled out of the Tank and retested up to eight years down the track.

Samples are selected for the Tank based on ASADA’s profiling of particular sports and athletes or their results in certain events such as the Olympics. If a particular sport has a history of doping offences, or if a particular athlete has shown a dramatic improvement in their performance for no apparent reason, they will be targeted for inclusion into the Tank.

Another key plank in the fight against doping in sport in Australia is ASADA’s extensive powers of investigation. ASADA is working cooperatively other Government bodies including Australian Federal and state police forces and Customs in Australia to investigate any and all allegations of doping, including trafficking and possession.

ASADA has the capacity to investigate the trafficking side of the drugs in sport issues, where the penalties for a first offence can range up to a life time ban from sport. ASADA also has the ability to identify customers of traffickers and determine if those customers are covered by anti-doping rules. Those who traffic prohibited substances and athletes or their support personnel who do business with them now face a coordinated and determined response with ASADA leading the fight.

For more information visit ASADA’s web site at: www.asada.gov.au

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